In 1999, Jordan Peterson published his first book, Maps of Meaning. The central question he set out to answer was this: "how did evil - particularly group-fostered evil - come to play its role in the world?" Now, nearly twenty years later and given Peterson's newfound popularity, the book has started selling again, especially given that he just released an audiobook version.

Today on the Truth Perspective, we will take a look at the basic ideas Peterson introduces and their connections with other works and theories, like Lobaczewski's ponerology and Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration.

Harrison Koehli co-hosts SOTT Radio Network's Truth Perspective, and is an editor for Red Pill Press. He has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists (commies too).

Reader Comments

As always, Dr. Peterson is helping Western humanity take a big, and needed, step in psychological sophistication. Now, if people can come to the point of realizing that "Lucifer" (and other spiritual beings) are quite real, not just psychological constructs, a whole world of knowledge will open up.

lsjarvi I prefer God alone be real and all that has reality is of God.

Insofar as I think to have been 'projected' into a separate 'being', so do I have some participation in the 'Lucifer' or Fallen creation, guilted hate, deceit and power struggle - in other words the 'human conditioning' of Separation Trauma as the wish and belief and thus experience of the pain and loss of True Being and its prime qualities of love, truth, joy, peace. law, etc

To a sense of LACK does God say "and who told you you were naked?

But while we jam the signal with fig-leaf doublethink, we block the recognition of this as our OWN true enquiry.

Whatever our reality-beliefs, we live them until we wake up at a higher Willing - which is gifted us and not wrested from devils in self-agrandizing ordeals. Unless of course you insist in persisting in feeding the very thing you say you hate by using it to get a sense of worth from!

As a man thinketh in his/her heart - so are they. There IS hate in the human heart and it does generate demonic and traumatic experience - so i broadly join with your post's sentiment.

Psychology - as science seeks to study the psyche as an object - and map it out in terms of maps, rules and content, so as to 'control it' as enhancements to current abilities or interventions into dis-ease conditions.

This define, predict and control mentality runs as the attempt to eradicate chaos by imposing rules of 'order'.

The psychic-emotional structure from which we presume to think, make meanings and react or respond accordingly, is itself learned conditioning - but as a pre-conscious event - UNTIL we release and are released from its self-reinforcing experience to NOTICE the thinking mind instead of presuming to be it.

This is the difference between the 'living and the dead'. The recognition of the thought that 'denies' the awareness of living is the release of the identification in it and thus the freedom to align in the call to joy, instead of the persistence of a blind systemic defence - of a personal narrative overlay.

Yes...Since finding "Power vs Force" by Hawkins combined with a rudimentary understanding of hermetic law I understand "Evil" as a necessity for maintaining a balance.

It all goes back to the basic understanding that without darkness how would I know light? How Am I to make a conscious choice about something, without an opposing choice as reference?

How in Gods name can we create a "better" world if it's already perfect? It's simple logic and reason. SOTT's arguments against Evil are not those of "thinking" ppl. They are emotion based and purely subjective.

What if, God "forbid" the choice to be "Forceful?" Where would free will be then?

"Evil" as a"bad" thing takes the position that God made a mistake.

If I choose to believe that God does not make mistakes, then I must keep searching within my own mind to understand how reality is created from a higher state of consciousness than the one humanity currently finds its Self.

POLARITY

"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything

has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same;

opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree;

extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."--The Kybalion.

A brilliant analysis and comparisons - not an easy task! Looking forward to more essential insights - the timing in my studies was perfect!

And kudos for handling the entire programme on your ownsome. Packed with nuggets from start to finish.

And Heuristic, of course we study 'Evil' for many many reasons, as well as 'balance'. How else could we make objective choices between Service to Self versus Service to Others, without detailed knowledge of both - and the 'traps' in between?